A/N: Thank you all for your reviews. I'm sorry that this is rather short, but I hope you still it enjoy it though.

Chapter 15

It was later that evening, when Horatio was lying on the floor with Elena sitting next to him. After the diaper emergency being taken care off, he had quickly took the chance to say goodbye to the Delkos and much to his relief they hadn't tried to stop him. At home he had cooked himself and Elena dinner and now they were taking a break from everyday life. Or rather said, Elena was busy playing with her Baby's first building blocks where she had to find out which block fitted into which hole, while he was watching her and thinking about the recent talk he had with his in-laws.

He was still surprised, to say at least, that they had reacted so calm and actually supporting when he'd told them about his feelings for another woman and now he was even more confused than before. If they had reacted differently, he would have gotten the confirmation that his behavior was wrong, but now they hadn't done that and this meant that he actually had to rethink it.

With a sigh he sat up and watched Ellie, who tried to put a block into the wrong hole. "That's not the right one, Sweetie," he said softly and scooted over to her until he was sitting behind her and she between his long legs. "You've got a circle there and the hole has the form of a triangle," he explained to her, though he wasn't sure if she actually understood it already.

When Elena let out a frustrated sigh and tried to squeeze the block into the hole, he couldn't help but chuckle. "You're quite stubborn, right Princess? But I regret to say that not everything works your way," he said and carefully grabbed her hand before she would either damage the toy or even worse, hurt herself. "See that's the circle," he said and pointed to the significant hole.

Elena looked up to him and when he told to just 'try it out' she did as she was told and squeaked when it suddenly fitted.

"Yeah, that's my girl," Horatio praised her and kissed her head, nuzzling her hair while doing so. "So you had a great time with Nana? That's wonderful to know. I bet that Nana will have a good night sleep then," he laughed, because he so knew what he was talking about.

When Elena was just a few days old, he had believed that then was the exhausting time, but he had been very wrong. Now, especially since she had begun to crawl and pulling herself up on anything she found, it was much more stressful to keep an eye on her and always being prepared for the unpredictable. It was probably even more exhausting because he was alone and couldn't share the task with someone else.

"You enjoy your time with Nana, right baby girl?" he asked softly and ran his thumb over her cheek. "Being in some female company, hm? Talking from girl to girl…" Of course she couldn't talk yet and he knew that, but he was sure, that she enjoyed having contact with a woman and he was also sure that she needed it. If not now, then definitely in a few years. There were a few things after all, where he couldn't help her with, as much as he wanted to.

"I can definitely relate to that. I grew up without a father," he told her, while Ellie was busy playing with her toy. "Of course I had one, but he wasn't a father, you know? I could never go to him and ask for advice, tell him about problems in school or with girls. I always went to my mom, but there are some things that you don't want to talk about with your mother when you're a boy," he chuckled and couldn't help but turn into a nice shade of pink even though Ellie had no idea what he was exactly talking about.

"Some days I felt very lonely, because there was no one who could really understand me and where I was coming from, even though mom tried her best to help me in every way she could." But sometimes just one parent wasn't enough for a kid. "You don't deserve that future, Ellie. You deserve both, dad and mom, and I'm so sorry that your mother can't be with us. I know how much she wanted that," he sighed sadly. "She'd have deserved it after all she'd been through and you deserve it too. You deserved to meet her." But this was something he couldn't change, no matter how much he wanted to. "You deserve a mom." And even though it was hard for him to admit it, he also deserved and wanted a partner too.

"You know," he said and snatched at a block to fiddle with it since he didn't have his sunglasses with him. "There's a woman who would be a good mom for you, Ellie and to be honest, daddy likes her a lot. But daddy had acted like an idiot and now he doesn't know what to do. The thing is, that I don't know if she likes me as much as I like her, all I know is that she likes you a lot. But then again, I don't know if she would be okay with being your mommy," he sighed in frustration. He knew that it was one thing to baby-sit a child, but a whole different thing to take responsibility for a child that technically wasn't yours.

Just as if she'd noticed his misery, Elena stopped playing with her toy and turned around to look at her daddy.

"I mean, how could someone not like you?" he continued talking and looked into her blue eyes, hoping to find anything in them; it didn't matter if it were answers, suggestions, approval or disapproval, he just needed something…anything to work with.

And she gave him an answer in her own way. Instead of words, she did it in actions and wrapped her arms around his torso and huddled up against him.

Moved by this, he in turn wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up, so it was a bit more comfortable for both of them. For a few long moments, none of them said anything, being completely content to be in each others arms and proximity.

"Is this your way of saying "stop thinking and do something, daddy"?" he broke the silence after a while and smiled when he heard her giggle. "So this means that I have your approval, right? That's so nice of you," he joked and carefully stood up with her. "I wish it would be that easy though," he kept on talking and climbed up the stairs to the second floor.

"I'm really not sure how I can make it up to her," he sighed. "And I'm still not sure if this is what I want. Maybe some sleep will help and that's the cue by the way, it's time to go to bed Ellie," he said and chuckled when she made a disapproving noise. "Uh-huh, believe it or not. But if you're a good girl, I'll read you a story," he promised her and disappeared into her nursery. Now he just needed a good idea of how to ask for a southern girl's forgiveness; a southern girl who could handle a gun like no other one. This was going to be easy…

tbc